This Ticket Guy’s Opinion: Jerry Angelo Is a Wuss

Okay let’s not all act shocked that Jay Cutler left Sunday night’s game with a concussion. Any Bears fan with even the remotest of pro football clues can see how terrible that offensive line is. When you’ve got guys like Kevin Shaffer, J’Marcus Webb, and Edwin Williams protecting your quarterback (just to mention a few of the names of players you’ve never heard of), the very real possibility of an injury to your quarterback is something I would certainly expect one to consider.

Which brings me to my point: Did the Bears’ brass consider this a possibility? Did Lovie and his staff ever think that Jay Cutler might be prone to getting banged up with the incomparable Lance Louis at guard? Did Jerry Angelo see this abomination of an offensive line in OTA’s in May and think to himself, “Now these guys can play“? I pose this question after seeing the absolute train wreck that was Todd Collins’ performance Sunday night, while earlier in the day seeing a headset’ed Marc Bulger roaming the sidelines for the Baltimore Ravens.

You know that Bulger fella, don’t you? He’s the guy who flourished in the complicated Mike Martz (psst! Mike Martz is the Bears offensive coordinator!) offensive scheme in St Louis from 2002-2005, with an average passer rating of 92.7. He’s also the guy who was the Pro Bowl MVP in 2004, and threw for 4,301 yards in 2006. In an uncapped year, what could possibly stop the Bears from insuring a quarterback position that would so clearly be in such peril?

I’ve heard NFL analysts and insiders speculate that Angelo balked at the idea of signing Bulger because he feared that long-standing Bear fan fascination with the ‘back-up quarterback’. That is, if Cutler had a slow start as he did last year, Bear fans would be calling for Bulger so adamently that he would feel pressured to insert Bulger, and in so doing, completely undermine the huge deal he made to get Cutler in the first place. If this is true, well, Jerry Angelo is not only an idiot, but more importantly, a huge WUSS. Yeah, I said it. A WUSS.

Hey Jerry – you’re not being paid to satisfy demands from moron Bear fans. You’re paid to assemble talent, according to the systems in place by the coaches, that maximizes the chance of WINNING A SUPER BOWL. What do you care what a gaggle of 300-pound, clogged-arteried, mustached Bears fans from Orland Park thinks? You know more about football than them, remember? It’s YOUR job to make the football decisions, not theirs! You’ve been in football as a coach or GM since 1972, where they still call the Bears stadium Soldier‘s’ Field!

And the argument that the fans may feel so cheated and disenfranchised that they may stop going to games, well, we all know that’s a bunch of hooey. I know it’s cliche, but this really is a Bears town. There’s no degree of disenfranchisement that will stop Bears fans from going to Soldier Field. If anything, a Bears game is an ideal venue to vent whatever idiotic beef your average Bear fan may have. Let them cry for the backup all they want, Jerry. They’ll be doing it with a Miller Lite in one hand, an Italian sausage in the other, and a ticket stub in their back pocket.

So Jerry, thanks for being such a freaking wuss this off-season and not signing a legitimate backup quarterback. You had to know your offensive line was iffy at best, and hence, that your star QB, whom you so ambitiously and impressively acquired, would be in danger. But you settled for a journeyman QB who was comfortably sitting on his couch, just so you wouldn’t have to hear it from Donny in Crystal Lake, or Frank in Cicero. In this new NFL, where concussions are treated like spine injuries, there’s a real chance we may not be seeing Jay Cutler on the field for a bit, which means it’s the Todd Collins show (though be prepared for the inevitable calls for Caleb Hanie), and it may be for awhile. If you weren’t such a pansy Jerry, we would have a veteran QB that knows the system. One that, even with diminished skills, would be 5 times the QB Todd Collins is.

Of course, now that I think a little more about it, with the aforementioned names on the offensive line protecting him, Bulger probably wouldn’t have lasted very long anyway.